Sustainable Development Goal 6: Ensure access to water and sanitation for all
First, some definitions
By 2030, achieve universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all -- United Nations sdg 6.1, https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal6
As of 2020, one in four people do not have access to safe drinking water
As expectable, not everyone in the world is in the same condition: some regions are in worse state, and there is an evident correlation with income
Although income is an important determinant, the range of levels of access which occur across countries of similar prosperity further support the suggestion that there are other important governance and infrastructural factors which contribute. In the scatter plot below we can see how countries with similar GDP can have very different access to safely managed water. The differences get lower with very high income.
Correlation coefficient: 0.7235606577008413
A more detailed look at lower income countries
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There can also be a difference in water access within the same country. The scatter plot below shows how a larger percentage of people have access to safely managed drinking water in urban areas compared to rural ones. When the dots are on the line, it means the percentages of rural and urban access are the same. In the majority of cases this doesn't happend, with the points landing above the line, thus indicating what stated above. The infrastructural challenges of developing water networks in rural areas is likely to play an important role in the situation. Also, urbanization is strongly related to economic growth, and we already enstablished a correlation with that in the plots above.
While the world has made progress in the last five years, this has been very slow. In 2015, when SDG started, only 70% of the population had safe drinking water. That means we've seen an increment of 4 percentage points over five years. At this rate we would only reach 82% by 2030. If we want to reach the target we have to more than triple the increment
Unsafe water is one of the top risk factors causing death worldwide. Besides, lack of access to safe water leads to malnutrition and poor sanitation, the latter is a leading risk factor for infectious diseases.
By 2030, substantially increase water-use efficiency across all sectors and ensure sustainable withdrawals and supply of freshwater to address water scarcity and substantially reduce the number of people suffering from water scarcity -- United Nations sdg 6.1, https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal6
A growing global population and economic shift towards more resource-intensive consumption patterns means global freshwater use has increased nearly six-fold since 1900. Rates of global freshwater use increased rapidly from the 1950s onwards, but since 2000 appears to be slowing.
Although absolute freshwater use has growth over this period, the distribution of uses between these regional groupings have not changed significantly over the last century.
Water withdrawal is defined as the quantity of freshwater taken from groundwater or surface water sources (such as lakes or rivers) for use in agricultural, industrial or domestic purposes.
Source: https://www.fao.org/aquastat/statistics/query/index.html UN FAO Aquastat Database
Source: https://www.fao.org/aquastat/statistics/query/index.html UN FAO Aquastat Database
As seen, there is large variance in levels of water withdrawal across the world – this can depend on a range of factors, including latitude, climate, and the importance of a country’s agricultural or industrial sector. Looking at the trends over time of some countries better visualizes how the situation is evolving.
Source: https://www.fao.org/aquastat/statistics/query/index.html UN FAO Aquastat Database
In the plot below we can see that worldwide, 71% of the annual water withdrawal is used in agriculture, 16% for industrial puposes and 11% for municipal purposes. Water is used for a range of industrial applications, including dilution, steam generation, washing, and cooling of manufacturing equipment. Industrial water is also used as cooling water for energy generation in fossil fuel and nuclear power plants (hydropower generation is not included in this category), or as wastewater from certain industrial processes. Municipal water is defined as the water we use for domestic, household purposes or public services. This is typically the most ‘visible’ form of water: the water we use for drinking, cleaning, washing, and cooking.
To mantain sustainable levels of water resources, rates of water withdrawal must be below rates of freshwater replenishment. Renewable freshwater resources include river flows and groundwater from rainfall.
As we see below, per capita renewable resources are declining as a result of population increases. If renewable resources decline — as can happen frequently in countries with large annual variability in rainfall — then per capita renewable withdrawals will also fall.
Water stress is measured based on freshwater withdrawals as a share of internal (renewable) resources. The World Resources Institute categorise water stress in the following ways: if withdrawals are less than 10 percent of resources then a country has low water stress; 10-20 percent is low-to-medium stress; 20-40 percent medium-to-high; 40-80 percent high stress; and greater than 80 percent is extremely high stress.
In some regions the water stress remains constant over the years, while others are able to diminish it, probably due to better infrastructures or technologies that reduce waste. Some regions like Algeria see their water stress increase due to population increase. Spikes like in Netherlands can be related to rainfall shortage/drought
In cases of high water stress we can expect water related conflicts. The Pacific Institute categorize the conflicts as follows:
Trigger: Water as a trigger or root cause of conflict, where there is a dispute over the control of water or water systems or where economic or physical access to water, or scarcity of water, triggers violence.
Weapon: Water as a weapon of conflict, where water resources, or water systems themselves, are used as a tool or weapon in a violent conflict.
Casualty: Water resources or water systems as a casualty of conflict, where water resources, or water systems, are intentional or incidental casualties or targets of violence.
Items in the data are included when there is violence (injuries or deaths) or threats of violence (including verbal threats, military maneuvers, and shows of force).
Source: Pacific Institute (2022) Water Conflict Chronology. Pacific Institute, Oakland, CA. https://www.worldwater.org/water-conflict/. Accessed: 09/2022
Comparing the conflicts coordinates with the water stress map, we can see that it's not only water stress, but probably other factors like water access that determine the conflicts. Keep also in mind that we are comparing the map from 2019 to conflicts from 1900 onward. As an example, Algeria had high water stress only in recent decades, as seen in the line chart, and we can observe that the starting date of the conflicts there are all recent.
Source: Pacific Institute (2022) Water Conflict Chronology. Pacific Institute, Oakland, CA. https://www.worldwater.org/water-conflict/. Accessed: 09/2022
Sometimes water infrastructure are responsible for a big waste of fresh water, worsening drought. In Italy's case, about 37% of water in the network is lost, leading to critical situations like in summer 2022.
mean = 37.36330275229357
Source: Istat, national statistic institute https://www.istat.it/it/archivio/268242
The histogram indicates that there are 2 normal-like distributions: the differences between italy's north and south regions are notorious, so it makes sense to hypothesize that north wastes less than the south.
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